


Back to Black

by thestaremaster



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Feels, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Relationships, Kinda, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-01-28
Packaged: 2018-05-14 11:22:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5741839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thestaremaster/pseuds/thestaremaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“So, here we are again.”  His low, bristling voice sent unpleasant tingles of anticipation through his mind, which remembered the sound all too well. Poe looked up, at his eyes, and recoiled at the cold flatness he saw; no light, no depth, no spark of a struggle. </em>
</p><p>When Kylo Ren first looked into Poe's mind to find a piece of information, he left something behind. Now back with the Resistance, Poe is faced with the unpleasant realization of what this something might be able to do to him.</p><p>(Not abandoned, just bad at updating--working on next chapter as of December!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Finn?”  The room, awash in harsh blue light, did not resemble their quarters, or any room in the base.  As he blinked heavy sleep from his eyes, he recognized his surroundings with a jolt of shattering terror.  His legs failed him, and if he hadn’t been cuffed to the table-like apparatus, he would have slumped to the ground.  In the absence of sound or movement or any other indicator of activity around him, he breathed.

 

In through the nose, out through the mouth.  Repeat.

 

Once his heart had stopped vying to break through his ribs and he was sure he wouldn’t pass out, he took stock of the situation.  He had to analyze his surroundings, look for weak points, look for potential tools or ways out.  As a Resistance fighter, it was his duty to avoid giving up sensitive information if at all possible, unlike the last time he’d found himself in one of these places.  He knew that he could withstand any physical challenge, any test of pain, but he wasn’t sure he could block out the kind of violating mental assault that had easily taken him to pieces before.  God knows he’d try, though.

 

Poe closed his eyes and thought back, pulling at the strings of his memories to make sense of his current predicament.  He remembered eating in the mess hall with Finn and Jess and Snap, remembered getting updated on Rey’s training progress from General Organa, remembered showering with Finn—to “conserve water” was their excuse—and settling in for an early night, prepared for an early morning of training flights.

 

And now he found himself here, inexplicably, searching for anything that could provide a means of escape and foundering as two troopers marched in, followed by a harrowingly familiar masked face.  Kylo Ren—Ben—dismissed the troopers and waved the door shut, almost an afterthought, before removing the mask and approaching him.  There was no need, he supposed, for the mask, not when Poe had seen his face, knew it both from experience and from smiling photos shown by General Organa in a moment of nostalgia.

 

“So, here we are again.”  His low, bristling voice sent unpleasant tingles of anticipation through his mind, which remembered the sound all too well.  “You should count yourself among the fortunate, Dameron.  I’m sparing you the pain you endured before since I know it won’t work.  Now, I have a question for you and I’d be very pleased if you answered it.”

 

He didn’t sound very pleased.

 

“I know that you’ve seen the completed map, and I need to know where Luke Skywalker and the girl you call Rey currently are.  You are going to tell me.  Whether you make it easy or hard for yourself is up to you.”  Poe looked up, at his eyes, and recoiled at the cold flatness he saw; no light, no depth, no spark of a struggle.  General Organa seemed convinced that her son still had some trace of goodness in him, some little remnant of the boy he’d once been.  But Poe kept looking and saw nothing left, all of his former self probably trained away by Snoke.

 

Though he had no training, he braced himself, imagining walls around and above and below his mind, a twisted-up, impenetrable crown.  He felt the first of Kylo Ren’s onslaught less as reaching tendrils of Force than the crashing, crushing power of a mighty wave collapsing down.  The impact shook Poe, almost physically, but he narrowed his concentration beyond that around him to that within him and redoubled his defensive efforts.  Kylo Ren had withdrawn, probably just as surprised as Poe that his efforts had met any successful resistance.

 

The next assault of power shattered his defenses, ran them clean through.  He was angry at Poe’s resistance, which made him both stronger and more reckless.  Inside his mind, _inside_ his thoughts and memories and everything that made him Poe, he ripped and slashed about.  He slammed into Poe, three years old, taking his first ride in his mother’s fighter ship; he tripped over Poe, eight years old, too shocked to cry at the news of his mother’s death; he pried his way past Poe, several months ago, kissing Finn for the first time.

 

The pain educed from Kylo Ren’s careless hunt through his mind was physical this time, a searing, all-consuming agony far worse than any of the torture he’d endured, and all he could think was _No, get out of my head, get out of my head, I have to live,_ get out of my head—

 

 

* * * * * * * * *

 

 

“Poe!  Poe, come on, wake up, please wake up.”  Bright light, but the warm yellows of the base replaced the severe blue of the First Order detention rooms.  A familiar face swam into focus above him, worried but a welcome sight.  Finn knelt above him, and Poe felt one hand wrapped around his arm as the other moved from cradling his face to petting his hair.  His limbs felt heavy, used.  His head felt like it had been split in two and sewn back together with floss and safety scissors.  His breaths came fast and irregular, sucked in through a parched throat and a jaw sore from being clenched for too long.  _How?_

 

“Oh, thank god, you’re awake.  Poe, I was so worried, you started saying things and then you were yelling and writhing around like you were in pain and then you just went _limp_ like you were—”  Finn choked on his words and let the sentence hang in the air, unfinished but self-evident.  Poe couldn’t manage to string all of Finn’s words together into a meaningful phrase, so instead he turned his head a fraction and saw their surroundings—their quarters—and several other people.

 

A doctor he recognized from medical stooped over his bedside, kit of medical tools at the ready.  General Organa sat at his desk chair, watching from afar, elbows on her knees and chin in her hands.  Poe tried to shake away the heavy haze smothering his thoughts, tried to form a coherent sentence.

 

“What…how am I here?”

 

The doctor leaned forward in confusion.  General Organa’s brow furrowed, troubled more than surprised.  Poe licked his lips and made another attempt.

 

“I was there.  The First Order, so…how?  And Kylo Ren.  Did you find…?”

 

“I believe you experienced something called a Force projection, Poe,” General Organa explained slowly.  “When someone uses the Force to enter your mind, they sometimes create a mental bond without meaning to.  If Kylo Ren realized this, he might have been able to connect with your mind, even far away, while your defenses were down while you slept.  Then he could project whatever he pleased, make you think you were somewhere else.  Is that what he did, Poe?”

 

Poe nodded weakly, his neck creaking in protest.  He let his mind drift as the others talked around him, the reality of such a power too awful and game-changing for him to consider.  Because if this was true, then Poe was a liability, a weakness.  Unless he could somehow learn to block out such Force projections even subconsciously, he’d have to go.  Instead, he focused on Finn’s hand, large and warm and comforting, scratching through his hair.  He didn’t want to lose that.  He couldn’t.

 

He couldn’t lose Finn.

 

The realization jolted him at the same time he knew it was ridiculous.  If staying with him meant endangering the Resistance, Finn included, he’d leave.  He’d go far away, maybe too far for Kylo Ren to find him; or maybe he’d learn to resist such advances and block it all out like a demented sort of nightmare.  The thought of failing both these endeavors, of taking other measures, seemed both awful and sensible at once.  He would make it so that Kylo Ren could never access his memories and privileged information—so that no one could.

 

So, instead of dwelling on it, he focused on Finn.  With all his considerably diminished faculties, he concentrated on his touch—fingernails short, fingertips soft but firm, fingers long and nimble, hands well-versed in the movements that could bring Poe sleep, bring him pleasure, bring him laughter.

 

He looked up dimly and catalogued Finn’s features for something like the thousandth time.  Eyes wide, seeing so many things for the first time, always seeing nothing but the best in people.  Somehow, raised to be a mindless soldier, he retained his capacity for compassion and empathy far and above what he’d seen in any normal person.  Lips full, sometimes soft and sometimes chapped when he bit and worried at them, waiting for a mission to return.  Right now, his eyebrows were drawn together and his lips turned down, which angered Poe.  Nothing should exist that could make Finn frown.  He loved Finn’s smile, so easily earned and infectious and long-lasting.  People paid attention when Finn smiled—they looked twice, they listened, they gave smiles in return.  Finn’s smile encompassed his entire face, his nose scrunching up, eyebrows raising, little lines appearing at the corners of his eyes, slightly crooked teeth showing.  It was, without a doubt, the most genuine smile Poe had ever seen, because Finn experienced things wholeheartedly and unassumingly.  When he smiled, he meant it.  Poe loved everything about Finn’s smile.

 

He loved Finn, really.

 

Poe dragged his arms up the bedsheets and hauled himself onto his elbows, wincing as every joint and muscle screamed.

 

“Commander Dameron, you shouldn’t be straining yourself,” the doctor warned.  Poe side-eyed him and pushed himself into a sitting position purely out of spite.  He hated taking advice from medical, no matter how right they were.

 

“Finn, it’s gonna be okay.”  He ran his thumb down Finn’s cheek, resting the palm of his hand softly against the side of his face.  “I promise I’m fine, buddy.  I’ll be peachy keen in no time and then we’ll figure out a fix for this real quick.”  He couldn’t quite tell if Finn saw through his words for the lie they were, but he smiled his beautiful smile, just for Poe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title not named after the song because wow that would be unrelated.


	2. Chapter 2

Finn worried.  About his friends’ happiness, about the future of the galaxy, about the danger of missions, about the progress of Rey’s training, about his usefulness to the Resistance.

 

Mostly, he worried about Poe.

 

After he’d woken up and been debriefed about the full set of events on Starkiller, he’d been horrified that only seven of the fourteen X-wing pilots sent out had returned.  Poe could have been one of the unlucky ones, who didn’t pull up in time, who couldn’t shake a TIE fighter, who guessed wrong and turned into a missile.  He wasn’t, though, and he sat beside Finn’s bed in medical for hours each day, telling him about the goings-on of the Resistance, introducing him to all the little and not-so-little things he’d missed in his twenty-three years of training and conditioning.

 

But it could’ve been Poe who hadn’t returned.

 

Poe told him that his near-constant worrying made him seem more like his eighty-five-year-old curmudgeon of a grandfather on Yavin 4 than a young, skilled Resistance fighter.  The truth that Poe either blocked out or missed was that almost all of the pilots—and other Resistance members—were young.  With the exception of some higher-up officers, like General Organa, the Resistance comprised fresh, determined faces.  All the soldiers and pilots and spies shared an ideological commitment, Finn had discovered, to freedom and democracy and equality.  With such conviction, they threw themselves into their missions and often into the line of fire.  Too often, they didn’t make it back, and the base held memorial services, burning empty pyres and joining together in remembrance, before welcoming newly trained recruits and continuing their seemingly endless work.

 

So Finn worried about Poe, because he was undoubtedly one of the bravest, smartest, and most skilled Resistance pilots.  His missions became increasingly daring as the First Order retreated and fortified its remaining ranks.  Sometimes, he came home with his X-wing, his baby, smoking and sparking.  Sometimes, he came home missing a member of his squadron.  When he limped out of his half-charred T-70 after an ambushed reconnaissance flight, shell-shocked, lips trembling minutely, and choked out that Iolo hadn’t made it, Finn held him.  Later that night, after medical and debriefing and the memorial service, Finn held Poe again and let him cry, body-wracking sobs.  Finn found himself fearing that Poe would break a rib for the force of his impassioned and unhampered weeping.

 

In the more rational part of his mind that he often liked to ignore, Finn knew that, eventually, Poe would make a mistake.  Even for the miracle of a pilot—the miracle of a man—he was, his luck would dry up and his skill wouldn’t quite be enough.  It was more a matter of ‘when’ than ‘if.’

 

When he’d expressed his fears to Poe, lying in his bed together, sweaty and twined around each other, kissing languidly, Poe had grinned his trademark grin, slightly crooked, and reassured that he had his superior piloting skills as well as his famous (infamous) mouthing-off to save him.  His smile didn’t quite make it to his dark eyes, which shone with aching ardor and despondent dejection.

 

So, Finn worried.

 

When Finn went to knock on Poe’s door the afternoon after the dream projection incident, he didn’t expect to hear General Organa’s voice, slightly raised and indisputably annoyed, coming from within.

 

“—course I’m not going to let you do that, Commander Dameron.  You’re too valuable to the Resistance to even think of the possibility!”  Then Poe’s voice, sounding distressingly close to hysterical and heartbreakingly morose.

 

“General Organa, I’m a liability!  I’m the biggest liability we’ve got right now!  If Kylo Ren can use me as a channel into our secrets, our information, I could be single-handedly responsible for the fall of the Resistance.  I have no idea what he already knows from last night alone, and I know they don’t have Starkiller anymore, but who knows what damage they could do with any of the sensitive information I’m privy to.”

 

“Be that as it may, the answer to this threat is _not_ for you to off yourself!  Is that honestly your answer to the problem?”  And then, in a softer, more familiar voice, “Poe, I’ve known you since you were about as long as half my arm.  Do you think I would ever clear you to do something like that in the name of the Resistance, especially when we can think of something else?”  Finn froze, his muscles locking up at the same time they seemed to turn shaky.

 

“We can keep you grounded for now, Poe, keep you out of the loop,” she said.  “The less you know, the less of a target you’ll be.”

 

“That’s not enough!”  He was yelling now, and Poe heard choked-back tears in his words.  “I already know too much, General!  I know the locations of our outposts, I know our allies and sympathizers and where they are, I know the places we might move the base in the next few years, I know our goddamn plans and strategies for fucking _everything!_   If I’m not out of the picture— _soon­_ —we are going to suffer for it.”

 

“I’m not letting you kill yourself!”  General Organa’s shouted words hung in the air, crystalized and final.  Finn leaned against the door.  His stomach heaved, his whole body quaked, physically sick with the idea.  “I’m going to consult medical, Poe.  If we can’t teach you to block out his Force projections, we might be able to stop them by inducing a medical coma.  Then we can find a long-term solution to the problem.  You park yourself in the mess hall or the pilots’ lounge or get someone to stay with you for the next twenty-four hours, or I’m putting you under surveillance.  I am not losing my best pilot, not to this.”

 

By the time the door opened, Finn could only step out of General Organa’s way.  She looked at him meaningfully for what seemed a very long few moments before striding down the corridor.  Her anger was apparent in her clipped, heavy footsteps.  He turned inward toward the room and locked eyes with Poe.  His expression was a near-unreadable mix of horror, anger, resentment, helplessness, and about a hundred other emotions.  Finn marched into the room, closed the door, and slammed Poe against the wall, forearm driving into his collarbones.  Poe’s breath left him in a shocked and forceful exhale, ghosting along Finn’s face and neck.

 

“I don’t know what the hell kind of death wish you have, Poe, but you’re getting rid of it right kriffing now.  I know how committed you are to the Resistance—I am too—but you are _not_ doing something that stupid, especially when you don’t have to.  There are other ways!  Did you listen to anything General Organa was saying?  We can put you under for a little while and—and when Rey and Luke Skywalker get back, they can teach you how to deal with it.”

 

Poe’s glare was positively glacial.

 

“I don’t know if you have any idea, but the last time Kylo Ren did this to me, he tore BB-8’s location out of me like a goddamn spiral notebook.  That’s the reason we crashed, that’s the reason you almost died on Jakku.  That’s the reason Rey got dragged into any of this.  And he didn’t seem to mind taking a good look around while he was searching for that information, same as last night.

 

“I feel like there’s something _in_ me, Finn, something that I can’t claw out, something that he left there.”  He’d started crying again, shining lines of salt tracking paths down his high cheekbones and stubble.  Finn’s heart wrenched, broke just a little, at how lost Poe obviously felt.

 

“I feel like I’m unraveling, Finn,” he whispered.  And then, just as soft but with awful resoluteness: “I’m terrified of what he might do to me next time, how he might _change_ me.  And I would rather die than have him inside my head even one more time.”

 

Finn relaxed the pressure of his arm and bent his head down, slumping against the sturdy warmth of Poe’s shoulder.  He’d never seen Poe so scared, so out of his element.  He desperately wanted to ignore the whole thing and focus on Poe, make him forget the problem, forget his fear, forget the seemingly insurmountable odds of the situation.

 

Instead he straightened and took Poe’s face in hands.

 

“Poe, we’re not going to let that happen, I promise you.  Do you trust me?  Do you trust General Organa?  Do you trust medical?  They brought me back from something that should have killed me, they can certainly handle you well.  General Organa’s plan is a good one, okay?  She’ll probably have you put under tonight and send a message to Rey or Chewie for Luke explaining the situation.”

 

“I’m not worth the resources, Finn.”  His voice edged on frustration but he didn’t pull Finn’s hands away from his face.  “All of this will just distract General Organa and Luke and Rey and everyone else from their missions and assignments.”

 

“Yes, you are worth it, Poe.  General Organa knows it, the rest of the Resistance knows it, _I_ know it.  Maybe you don’t, but you’ve gotta start realizing just how important you are.  General Organa sent you to Jakku, Poe, not Jessika, not Snap, not anyone else.  You’re the leader of two squadrons!  And you finished the Starkiller mission when Rey and I and the rest of your squadron couldn’t.  I don’t know everything you’ve done for the Resistance, Poe, but I’m sure it’s been pretty damn important.”

 

Poe’s eyes slipped closed and he leaned into Finn’s touch, still visibly unsure.  Finn let out a sigh and leaned forward to kiss him, just a brush of lips.  Poe brought his hands up to rest on Finn’s shoulder, not pushing, not pulling, just touching.  He opened his mouth into the kiss with an easy and familiar rhythm, but Finn couldn’t mistake the salty taste of tears on his lips.  He traced his lips with his tongue, kissed each corner of his mouth, trailed kissed down and up his jaw.  Finn poured as much love as he dared, as much of his boundless affection, into each touch of his lips.  Poe finally opened his eyes and let his head thunk back against the wall.

 

“Finn you know this isn’t gonna work, buddy.”  Finn tangled one hand in the dark curls of Poe’s hair and wound his other around his hips, closing the distance between them.

 

“Yes, Poe.  It is.  I know there might be a time in the future where one of us doesn’t come back from a mission, but I am not letting you give up this easily.  You’re not a martyr, and you’re certainly not a waste of resources.  Don’t you get it?  You’re not helping the Resistance by refusing help—by giving up.  So stop being an idiot.”

 

A small smile budded at the corners of Poe’s lips, working its way up his face.  Small, but welcome all the same.

 

“So I’m an idiot now, huh?”  Finn laughed—the sound seemed about as shaken and relieved as he felt.  He leaned in for another kiss, brief but replete with everything they hadn’t said, everything they would say.

 

“Yeah, but you’re my idiot.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hurrah for tooth-rotting fluff and slightly confusing plots.


	3. Chapter 3

“Okay, Poe, this is it.”  Poe sat on one of the beds in medical, apprehensive and about as grumpy as one would expect a two-year-old to be.  He’d been stuffed into their standard-issue clothes after much grousing and now sat with his arms crossed, foot tapping out a rhythm against the bed’s metal side.  One of the doctors worked with a med droid to hook up nutrition and hydration IVs to a rack while General Organa briefed Poe with logistics.  Finn felt utterly useless, getting in the way of the droid as it darted about and the doctor as she went from machine to machine around the room.

 

He also felt quite lost, not sure how to internalize and process the reality that Poe would be asleep for an indefinite period of time and Finn would have to learn the rest of the base’s quotidian motions and complexities on his own.

 

“—very controlled, and I’m almost certain that this should successfully shut him out, but we’ll monitor your brain activity just in case, to look for any spikes that could indicate something significant.  If that happens, we’ll wake you up immediately and take other action.

 

“I’ve contacted my brother with the situation, and I do believe he’ll drag his sorry Jedi ass over here very soon to explore options and, hopefully, train you to cut off the connection at all times and perhaps even permanently.”

 

Poe listened raptly to General Organa as she laid out her plan, lips drawn tightly together and eyes downcast.  Though he’d agreed to the plan—or resigned himself to it, more accurately—his behavior suggested that he was still convinced of its futility.  Finn couldn’t understand what drove his morbid certainty, his belief that nothing short of killing himself would be an adequate response.

 

The thought chilled Finn to the core.  That would probably play right into Kylo Ren’s hands—it would undoubtedly benefit the First Order if the Resistance’s best and most daring pilot no longer posed a threat.

 

Finn wanted nothing more than to take Poe back to their quarters and kiss him until he couldn’t worry anymore, wrap him up in his arms and make him forget about the mess they’d been hurled into head-first.  Instead, he watched, arms crossed tight over his chest and fingers jaw clenched, as the doctor and the med droid slid a miniscule IV into Poe’s forearm, watched as Poe’s drooping eyes met his before sloping shut.  As Poe slipped deeper and deeper, years were cast off his face, worry lines slackening, frown ebbing to a peacefully neutral expression, hundreds of too-close calls and sacrifices and losses wiped away.

 

Finn realized that he hadn’t moved for minutes, jerked back to the present by the prickly discomfort of his fingers digging into his arms and the budding soreness in his tightly tensed jaw.  He sucked in a breath, ragged and painful, and looked over at General Organa.

 

She was clutching Poe’s hand gently, the tenderness in her fingers belied by the veins that stood out over strained muscles.  He stepped forward, opened his mouth to speak.  He swallowed his words, though, practically shaking with the anger and confusion he’d amassed without an outlet in sight.  _I can’t be mad around the General…that would be so out of order._

 

But the questions simmering just below his skin only bubbled more insistently, almost burning enquiries that he needed answered.

 

As the doctor and med droid finished hooking Poe up to the monitors and filed out the door, Finn moved forward again until his hip bumped against the bed, mere feet away from the General.  She knew Finn stood there, so close, he was sure, but her focus remained centered on the limp hand she gripped in hers.

 

“General Organa, I need to—I mean, I’d like to ask you a question.  I apologize for my impertinence, but I have to know.  I have to.”

 

The General turned to face him.  In that single moment, her eyes seemed as weary and old as he’d ever seen them.  They reminded him of Maz’s eyes, their vast wisdom clouded by an almost unfathomable realm of pain and loss experienced in a lifetime so long.  Her eyes saw Finn, knew him.  Knew what he feared and thought about.  Knew what he wanted to ask her.  But she watched him without moving or speaking, so Finn swallowed a few times and began again.

 

“I—well, Poe seems so convinced that whatever we do won’t work, even though it’s you, and I know he trusts you more than anyone.  But he’s still convinced himself that nothing short of, you know—” the words stuck in his throat— “killing himself will be enough, and it’s like he feels personally responsible for the situation.  _God,_ how can he think that?  Please, General Organa, you must know something.  I mean, Poe can’t have always been like this.  Or has he?”

 

General Organa lifted herself out of the chair she’d been perched on.  Finn followed her, neck swiveling stiffly, as she plucked another chair from the corner of the room, identical to hers and just as pallidly grey.  She set it at the foot of Poe’s bed and waited expectantly.  It took Finn several moments to process the fact that she wanted him to sit.

 

The casualness of the gesture left Finn speechless, so he dropped onto the unforgiving seat and waited for something to happen.  Captain Phasma had never permitted him or any other troopers in her division to sit in her presence, especially when she reprimanded them for errant behavior or substandard achievement.  In the presence of the likes of General Hux and Kylo Ren, sitting was about the last thing a Stormtrooper worried about, punishment and decommission posing more pressing concerns.  That General Organa thought to offer Finn a place to sit—and had gotten it herself—seemed almost comically erroneous.

 

Finn wrapped his fingers around the sides of the seat.  Its thin, rough edges cut into his skin, reassuringly painful and real.  _Poe must have sat on these for weeks,_ Finn realized, somewhat nonplussed.  A veritable galaxy of missions and duties and other priorities and he’d spent hours each day sitting on an unforgiving, uncomfortable duraplast chair, waiting for Finn to wake up and, if he believed the accounts of Calista A’kazz, a middle-aged woman from Belderone, telling Finn countless stories about his childhood and his time with the New Republic.

 

“Finn.”  His name, not quite a question.  “You have to understand that I’ve known Poe almost since he was born.  His parents were Resistance fighters.  They lived on Yavin both before and after our base was stationed there.  He’s grown up a soldier.  There was never a time when he didn’t want to be a pilot for the Republic—ever since he had his first ride with his mother.”  Her eyes narrowed slightly, seeing something rarely thought about but fondly remembered.

 

“I knew his parents.  They both fought in the Battle of Endor—when we defeated the Empire, for good.  Well, we thought it was for good then, especially when the Imperial Senate toppled.  I should have known that they would manage to creep back as the First Order.”  Finn didn’t point out how unmerited the General’s self-judgment seemed.

 

“Well, might as well not dwell on that.  Kes Dameron was quite a soldier.  He played an instrumental role in destroying the deflector shield generator on the Empire’s battle station.  I refuse to call it a Death Star, I’ve had enough of those for about three damn lifetimes.

 

“Shara—Poe’s mother—was a pilot with the Rebellion, and a damn good one.  Poe definitely gets his love of flying from her.  I’ve always been surprised that no one in the Dameron family was Force-sensitive.  You’d think pilots that good would have at least a hint of it, but it’s just a lucky mix of talent and fast reflexes I guess.  I sometimes tried to work out any little inkling of Force in that family—one of the very few useful knacks I got from my disaster of a father—but nothing.  I think he was fixed on being a fighter pilot the first time when he was about three and went up for his first flight with his mother.  You’d have thought he’d had a religious experience, the way he talked about it.”

 

Finn couldn’t help but smile at this because it wasn’t far from the truth.  The few times he’d gotten into a two-seater fighter ship with Poe after he’d woken up, he’d noticed the change in Poe’s tone, the reverence and adrenaline and bliss and razor-sharp concentration spun into an almost trance-like state where he could perform just about any maneuver, out-fly any other Resistance pilot and push the ship beyond any reasonable or sane limit.

 

In those moments, in the midst of dauntless and arguably reckless flying, he felt safer than he’d ever felt before.  The first time they’d flown together (save their one frantic and short-lived venture in the TIE fighter), he’d been confused, bordering on alarmed, by the warm tugging in his gut that he now knew as the profound belonging he’d never realized could exist before.

 

General Organa continued, a smile apparent in the warmth of her words.  Finn hadn’t realized how well she knew Poe.

 

“I guess he must have been eighteen—or nineteen, maybe—when he left Yavin to join the New Republic’s Starfleet.  By then he’d been flying on his own for eleven, twelve years.  Well, you can guess what a hit he was with the others.  He moved up the ranks pretty quickly, achieved commander status and got his own squadron, which seems pretty mediocre now that he’s got two.”  She laughed wryly.

 

“Just like he is now, he was privy to quite a lot of privileged political and military information.  At some point, he was assigned a mission to fly some top-secret information to an outpost.  Normally they’d just transmit them, but these were too important to be intercepted and seen by the wrong eyes.  They had something to do with some of the other pilots in the Starfleet running a deep cover mission, if I remember correctly.  On route, he got ambushed by pirates.  You know how good of a pilot he is, but when you’re outnumbered, outgunned, and caught completely unaware, it’s never much of a fight.

 

“Honestly, I consider it a miracle he survived.  If he’d been in deep space and not skirting over a planet’s atmosphere, he wouldn’t have had the slightest chance of surviving.  He told me that he woke up in a thorn tree of some sort, parachute just about suffocating him, with no idea where he was on the planet or what had happened after he’d been shot down.  I’m sure you felt just as panicked as Poe did then when you woke up on Jakku.  I’ve been in some similar fixes in my life and it is just about as far from a pleasant experience as I think you can get.”

 

Finn wondered when the General had been in such a situation, marveled at her blasé mention of what were probably some of the most terrifying experiences of her life.  He supposed it resulted from a lifetime of strategizing and fighting and getting out of unexpected mishaps, though he didn’t have any doubts that he would still be as terrified as he had been on Starkiller in any comparable situation, even with decades of experience.  General Organa was a true force of nature.

 

“Of course, when he found out what had happened with the information he’d been carrying, he blamed himself entirely.”  Finn didn’t wait for her to elaborate before asking, equal parts impatient and apprehensive to know the rest of the story.

 

“What happened with it?  Did the pirates get it?”

 

“Worse.  They sold it to the First Order.  I doubt they were sympathizers to either their cause or ours, but such crucial information probably secured enough money for all of them to retire three times over.   And the First Order did what they do—they tracked down the undercover Starfleet pilots and killed them.  Every single one.  Didn’t matter whether or not their mission posed a threat to the First Order.”

 

Finn felt sick.  Now that he’d heard what had happened, he couldn’t take it back.  Part of him wished that he’d never asked, but he knew it would have plagued him, eaten away at him, until he gave up and went to the General for an explanation.

 

“So Poe blamed himself,” he said.  A statement, not a question.  The General nodded.

 

“Of course he blamed himself.  And of course he was infuriated that the New Republic wouldn’t respond in kind.  He didn’t leave the New Republic after that, but it was probably the beginning of the end.  He came to me after his squadron intercepted the First Order attacking a civilian transport convoy.  The leaders of Starfleet still wouldn’t engage directly with them, and I think he drew the line there.”

 

Finn imagined Poe—kind, outgoing, vivacious Poe, who always had a smile and a story for his friends and co-pilots—eaten up with guilt over the death of his colleagues and tormented by the helplessness he no doubt felt.  How had he not turned inward, become jaded and inimical like some of the Resistance fighters Finn saw around base?

 

“I’ve been mistaken before, but I’m sure that this situation brings him right back to that mission.  He’s so compassionate and loyal that he’d rather die before cause allow his friends and comrades to fall in harm’s way, especially from the First Order.”

 

The General glanced over at Poe.  Finn watched her as she brought her hand to Poe’s head and ran her fingers through his dark curls.  _What a woman,_ Finn couldn’t help but think.  He knew what General Organa had endured over the years, had heard it from Poe and Jess and Snap—home plant destroyed, battles lost, brother gone, Han dead, son stolen for the Dark Side.  Her weariness showed, but there was no mistaking the quiet strength and resolve she still had in spades.

 

“Finn?” she asked, still looking at Poe.  “I know you love him.  And I sure as hell know that he loves you.  I know I’m asking you to do something monumental, but please—help me bring him back when we wake him up.  He’s rooted in the past right now, and until we help him see reason, I’m afraid of what might happen.”

 

Finn looked at the General, tired and determined and worried; looked at Poe, serene in a semblance of sleep.

 

“Of course.”


End file.
